This article explicitly states that some state governments do do that. Seems like the federal government has got its shit together, but some states don't, and neither do you. What did you think you'd accomplish by posting an article that directly dismisses your claim?

I think state funding is a different issue from federal funding. The whole point of states is to represent a smaller subset of the population, to better suit their needs and wants. If the population of a state, in general, doesn't mind funding abortion why is it a problem?

At this point, I'd vote for any candidate who pledged to change the voting structure even if I disagreed with them on every other issue.

Forgive my ignorance, but isn't that up to the parties themselves? If the Republicans wanted to decide their primary candidate by members-only STV, are there any laws which would stop them?

Well, the whole system is weird. It's more complicated that just the parties controlling everything, and there's a lot the government can do to change it. The Republican Party could change their primary system, but the federal or state governments could also change the system so that primaries are more regulated and official, or (preferably, from my standpoint) so that primaries are unnecessary. I'm also talking about more than just the primaries. Get rid of the Electoral College, set up the General Election as Alternative Voting, set up Congress with STV, etc. I think the whole system needs a revamp.

Agreed. This republican primary is a great example of why plurality voting is completely ridiculous. It seems like right now it's basically Trump taking the crazy or uninformed vote while the rest of the candidates duke it out for what's left. At this point, I'd vote for any candidate who pledged to change the voting structure even if I disagreed with them on every other issue.

The primaries are there precisely to prevent pluralities. Getting rid of them would cause America to start experiencing those.

Not if we used the alternative vote to elect presidents. Plurality, or first past the post, voting is a huge problem is American politics. It enforces a two-party standard and gives the parties far too much power, and it encourages extremism etc. And besides that, the primary system isn't even effective at preventing pluralities. Just ask Ross Perot.

Isn't ridiculously powerful private armies one of the big reasons the Roman Republic turned into a dictatorship?

I'm personally in favor of dramatically reducing the size of the US military, by any arbitrary percent, but this is a stupid and dangerous way to do it. NGOs should not have militaries.

The way I see it, the world powers are already incapable, and unwilling, engage in direct armed conflict with each other. We proved that in the cold war. At best it would be a repeat of the first world war, at worst it would be nuclear armageddon. With that in mind it seems like folly to maintain early 20th century standing armies. We're never going to use them for anything more than small-scale engagements and military occupations (i.e. Russia in Ukraine, China in Tibet, the US in Iraq), but our militaries are based on the idea of an impossible conflict between the giants. It's silly and paranoid.

Western nations are downsizing their militaries quite a bit, and the overall size is already tiny compared to WWII numbers; the USAAF had in excess of 50,000 aircraft relative to today's 5,000. The F-35 and LCS are good examples of this new cost saving mentality; mission versatility and interoperability built in to an already cheap platform, which then replaces the bigger and purpose built platforms of old.

There's also been plenty of news stories published in recent months regarding the capability of individual forces within NATO (i.e the Bundeswehr training with broomsticks instead of rifles, Luftwaffe Typhoon's not being ready, etc). Russia, too, has shown its lack of readiness in the consistent aircraft hull losses driven by a heightened state of readiness brought on by the Ukraine crisis. There just isn't the military spending that there used to be, and it shows.

I also disagree that a conflict similar to WWI would ever take place again. What distinguished WWI was trench warfare, which was largely dictated by the immobile nature of warfare at that time and the superiority of defensive tools like the machine gun. Modern technology means an entirely different battlefield if such large scale combat were to take place again. I wouldn't be surprised if conflict between nation states fizzled out quickly on account of quick losses in expensive hardware, such as aircraft or ships. It's all well and good for rebels to blow up a few old T-72's in disparate regional conflicts, but how many T-90 losses could Russia stomach? How many F-16's could the US stand to lose?

Finally, conflict between the big boys doesn't necessarily mean Armageddon. From memory, Russia always planned the use of tactical nuclear strikes in the case of hypothetical conflict with NATO. I doubt such an attack would spark global nuclear warfare. MAD just means nation states are unlikely to nuke each other, not that they won't enter conflict at all.

Well trench warfare dominated the Western Front, but the real defining characteristic of WWI was that the weapons they were using had never really been used in large-scale warfare between major powers before, so the old strategies were obsolete, and that the nations involved were powerful enough that only what essentially amounts to total annihilation could cause one to surrender. I think a modern world war would be similar, if there were no nukes involved. I doubt there'd be many trenches, but it would be drawn out and bloody and everyone involved would be totally devastated. I think the issues of expense wouldn't be enough to end it quickly unless one side was losing everything and the other side wasn't, which seems kind of unlikely (although the US would probably have a pretty big technological advantage, so who knows). I don't know a whole lot about the mechanics of the military, but I do know politics and history and those say that the loser wouldn't surrender until they had nothing or no one left to fight with. Especially Russia. I mean, look at them in every major war they've been in during modern times. When they run out of equipment they just send waves of soldiers at the enemy until they win. If it came to total war, I don't think they'd be beyond doing that again.

World powers can and probably will fight each other, just not on their home soil. Conventional warfare is still viable for control of outside lands. A war between Russia or China and the US isn't by default a nuclear one.

No, but it seems like the nuclear deterrent is enough to stop open conflict before it begins. Don't get me wrong, I understand that what I'm asking for is impossible unless Russia and China were to agree to also downsize their militaries, but I still think that a scenario where the world powers had militaries only large enough to enforce their superiority would be preferable to the current situation. Think of what we could do with all of the saved resources.

At this point, I'd vote for any candidate who pledged to change the voting structure even if I disagreed with them on every other issue.

I feel the same way, but on education reform; especially funding. Property taxes are ruining everything. I think I could tolerate virtually any other platform so long as the number one campaign promise was to completely nationalize primary and secondary public education.

That's valid, but the way I see it voting reform is a systematic change that is necessary before meaningful change in other areas is possible. All the education in the world won't keep an oligarchy democratic, and we're well on the way to becoming a glorified oligarchy. I think that above all other issues (and don't get me wrong, as we're all aware I'm a raving fanatic bleeding heart liberal on all sorts of issues) we need to end gerrymandering, gut the political parties, and change the way all elected officials are elected.

I mean, look at this election. It's idiotic. The half of the country that has primaries after Super Tuesday barely has any say in the primary. The Republican candidates are all trying to be one step more conservative than the others, while still not being so conservative that they can't become moderates in the General Election, while Trump is calling them out on it with his clownish extremism. It's looking like the General will be between the third Bush and second Clinton and every candidate except for Trump and Sanders (neither of whom have more than a tiny chance of winning) have been bought and paid for by special interest groups.

Isn't ridiculously powerful private armies one of the big reasons the Roman Republic turned into a dictatorship?

I'm personally in favor of dramatically reducing the size of the US military, by any arbitrary percent, but this is a stupid and dangerous way to do it. NGOs should not have militaries.

The way I see it, the world powers are already incapable, and unwilling, engage in direct armed conflict with each other. We proved that in the cold war. At best it would be a repeat of the first world war, at worst it would be nuclear armageddon. With that in mind it seems like folly to maintain early 20th century standing armies. We're never going to use them for anything more than small-scale engagements and military occupations (i.e. Russia in Ukraine, China in Tibet, the US in Iraq), but our militaries are based on the idea of an impossible conflict between the giants. It's silly and paranoid.

Agreed. This republican primary is a great example of why plurality voting is completely ridiculous. It seems like right now it's basically Trump taking the crazy or uninformed vote while the rest of the candidates duke it out for what's left. At this point, I'd vote for any candidate who pledged to change the voting structure even if I disagreed with them on every other issue.

I'm hoping for president Sanders. I'd be okay with Hillary, since she seems competent and being a good person is not a prerequisite for being a good president, and I can't find a republican candidate who doesn't seem insane in some way. Rand Paul would be passably acceptable, since most of his crazier schemes would never actually get past congress.

Even if I had said that, which I didn't, perhaps it should be. The fact is, this country long ago betrayed the nature upon which it was founded. The only thing left for it to do is to hurry the hell up and blow itself to smithereens, so the rest of us, who know what we're about, can rebuild it the way it was meant to be. The libtards have destroyed the place. I just wish they would get on with eliminating themselves so the rest of us don't have to put up with their sorry asses. Of course, if I were made dictator for a a year, I could resolve the problem.

Anyone who was in any gang over the age of sixteen would be shot on sight.

Anyone who crossed the border illegally over the age of sixteen would be shot on sight.

Anyone who committed any offence with a weapon and was over the age of sixteen would be shot on sight.

Any person cought "tagging" a piece of property would be arrested. If the sign was determined to be a gang sign the tagger would be shot.

The police would not issue warning shots. If two people were committing a crime, your warning shot would be the other guy dropping dead next to you. That would be your recommendation to stop what you were doing if you cared to live to be arrested.

For a solid year, the country would be under martial law. The military would run things. Anyone who challenged that would be killed, without trial or question. After that year, all States would be granted their independence, the Government would be abolished, and if the States wished it, there would be a new Constitutional Convention to consider the idea of a new Constitution that would be MUCH weaker than the one we currently have, in order to guarrantee the Rights of the States.

I really love your character troll, but I feel like this is a bit on-the-nose

_________

Tom, Scalia's argument is a huge pile of bullshit unbecoming of a supreme court justice. Your metaphorical 6 year old could see the flaws in his dissent. It reads like an angry noob's first post. If you're going to make an argument against the decision, you can't rely on his dissent.

How is homosexual love so important to a society, as to warrant financial benefit?

They can't have kids (although that's actually untrue these days), but that just makes them orders of magnitude more likely to adopt, which takes pressure off of the foster care system. That's behavior worth rewarding.

The problem with Uber is that they're not competing on a level playing field. In most countries, taxis are forced to pay for taxi licenses which cost thousands of pounds/ dollars/ euros and have to be insured separately from normal driving insurance. Because Uber drivers don't have to do this, they can afford to charge significantly less than official taxis.

Either Uber should be charged and regulated like regular taxi firms, or regular taxi firms should be allowed to change their model to one similar to Uber's.

Seems kind of silly to have to get a taxi license. I guess it encourages them to drive safely, but I can't imagine it has all that much of an impact.